Events

Susan Burkholder worked for 30 years in the health care industry in sales, marketing, consulting, coaching, and executive management roles.  In 2013, Susan felt called to get involved in the issue of human trafficking.  She served as an Ambassador for Shared Hope International, and became an active member of the Alamo Area Coalition Against Trafficking. Since 2015, she has served as a volunteer with Ransomed Life, a San Antonio based 501c3 organization providing mentoring, counseling, education, community awareness and restoration to San Antonio area 12-17 year old female survivors of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking.   Susan is currently serving Ransomed Life, in a volunteer role, as their Director of Community Engagement.

Chrystal Smith is a foster and adoptive parent residing in Dripping Springs with her husband, Nick Smith, and their 4 children. Chrystal is the founder and Executive Director of Foster Village, a non-profit organization that provides critical support to foster, kinship, and reunifying families in central Texas. Using her experience as a foster parent, a degree in Child Development, and professional experience as a Parent Educator, Chrystal has rallied the community to bridge some of the troubling gaps that plague our current foster system. Foster Village recently launched an innovative multi-use resource center on Fitzhugh Rd. after meeting the needs of over 700 children in crisis.

Come and witness a very old collection of baseball cards from teams like the Houston Buffs (Buffalos). Take a walk down memory lane with Charlie.

President-Elect Tullis will present her 'agenda' and plans for 2018-19 Rotary year.

Lynn Parent, EA, Principal

Parent Tax Consulting leparent@att.net

www.parenttaxconsulting.com 512-431-3149

Whether you do your own taxes or have somebody do them for you, all you want is for the IRS to take your money or give you a refund and then leave you alone. But should the IRS come after you, the best thing you can do is have someone like Lynn Parent by your side.

Lynn is an Enrolled Agent, a federally licensed tax practitioner authorized by the U.S. Department of the Treasury with unlimited rights to represent taxpayers before the IRS for audits, collections and appeals.

Like other EAs, Lynn advises and represents individuals, partnerships, corporations, estates, trusts and any entities with tax-reporting requirements, but unlike many other EAs, she does not prepare tax returns.

Instead, Lynn helps people settle their tax problems with offers in compromise or installment agreements, or by dealing with collection personnel, correcting errors in accounts, requesting abatements of penalties and stopping collection actions.

Before opening her Austin-based practice, Parent Tax Consulting, in 2011, Lynn spent nearly 30 years on the other side of the desk in collections with the Internal Revenue Service, rising through the ranks to achieve its highest level of Grade 13 Revenue Officer.

Lynn was one of two Grade 13 Revenue Officers operating out of Houston who covered cases in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso and McAllen. At any given time, she was handling between 35 and 50 of the most challenging and complicated tax collection cases simultaneously in the southern two-thirds of Texas.

Carrying a briefcase, not a gun, Lynn met directly with taxpayers in order to collect on delinquent accounts. She had the authority to seize assets and funds to satisfy delinquencies, and place liens and holds on assets to ensure that people with delinquencies could not sell their property or other assets before the government had a chance to collect its share.

What do you know about the Dripping Springs Rotary Foundation?  Come and hear the strategic plan for future growth.

Dripping Springs High School being named a Fab Lab by MIT was a big accomplishment. Fab labs provide widespread access to modern means for invention. They began as an outreach project from MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms and became into a collaborative and global network.

Now they “engage in design, manufacture, redesign and refinement as a regular practice. Our current course offerings are U Teach Engineering Technology 1 & 2 from UT Austin, Applied Physics, Robotics Engineering, CAD, Computer Programming I, Programming II and AP Computer Science,” according to their website.

Teacher Jad Jadeja, CTE - Programming & Robotics Teacher is the one that is in charge of the FAB LAB. Although every one his classes listed on the website is a class with one period each, but it is not. He has students from different classes arriving at different periods and working on different projects at anytime during the school day.

One might think that it would be total mayhem in his classes, but it is just the opposite. The calm students are focused and working on their assigned projects. No matter whether freshman or senior, they are in the class to be creative, design and produce for example, mini-F1 cars, robots or solar cars for state competitive racing.

Essential Next Steps. Jon & Leah Harlig. They help with organizing life’s transitions. Jon is a Certified Relocation and Transition Specialist. Leah is a Certified Senior Advisor. Their phone number is 512 215 0383. Email jon@essentialnextsteps.com, and leah@essentialnextsteps.com.

John Leslie  with Physicians Mutual Insurance. Going to speak on Long term care Insurance, medicare, and medicare supplement plans. John Leslie’s phone number is 512-952-9825. Email johnrleslie@outlook.com

Michelle Bailey from Hospice Austin is speaking about all the free programs that they offer the Community. (737)346-9940. Her e-mail is mbailey@hospiceaustin.org.

Do you LOVE SOFI? Of course you do! Because last summer, we fed over 200 kids within 80+ DS families. We collect thousands of food bags in less than 4 short weeks. We promote community in nearly every n'hood in Dripping Springs, among more than 100 volunteers, and a host of local businesses and civic groups. Not to mention awarding over 200 volunteer hours to local students. The one the only Mandi McNutt will be joining us on Monday July 9th with an update on SOFI in the Drip! Please share and let everyone know how our community totally abounds in love and generosity.

Join us on July 23rd with speaker Nichol, founder of the Tiger Readers Foundation.

What is Tiger Readers?

Tiger Readers Foundation is an early intervention reading program that supports students in Pre-K – 2 nd Grade.  We work alongside teachers to provide students who need extra support with letter recognition, reading and writing skills.

Research shows that most of a child’s brain development occurs within the first few years of life.  A child’s brain grows to more than 90% of an adult size by the age of three.  In Texas 26% of children ages 1-5 are read to less than 3 days per week and recognize the letters of the alphabet. Children who are read to at home are more likely to be able to count to 20 or higher than their peers. They are also more likely to be able to write their name and begin to read.

Tiger Readers was founded to help teachers and parents close the gaps in early reading readiness.

Let's get together and get SOCIAL! This months social will be at The League in the Belterra Shopping Center. See you there!

Our speaker for the August 5th meeting is Mike Deming a licensed Geologist who has broad experience in a variety of areas. The topic of his presentation is "Geology of the Texas Hill Country", will be given as a PowerPoint presentation with geologic illustrations and pictures.  As Mike expressed to me... “The presentation is mostly info-tainment, not too technical but will give the audience a general understanding of the geology, structure, rocks, and fossils that we live on and how these affect our lives.”  Briefly, he received a B.S. Degree in Earth Science from Missouri State University and a M.S. Degree in Geology and Geophysics for the University of Missouri Science & Technology. He has the following licenses: AAPG Certified Petroleum Geologist, SIPES Certified Earth Scientist and Licensed Professional Geoscientist, State of Texas. Mike's 30+ years of professional practice exploring for oil and gas for an energy hungry world both domestically and internationally have included projects in such far away places as Nigeria, Egypt (Gulf of Suez), Offshore Tunisia Gabon, Offshore Argentina, South China Sea (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippine), Brunei, Canada, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand and Angola. He has served in various capacities to respected companies such as Amoco, Phillips, Swift Energy, Midstates Petroleum, and Challenger Minerals...and is currently a Geoscience Consultant at Earth Trek Exploration, in Houston.  Obviously, Mike has called several places home for the last few decades including Houston, Tulsa and Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He also has established a second home in Blanco and now spends a lot of time in the Hill Country.